It seems inevitable that Lifetime TV will eventually produce a feature-length dramatisation of the wax my balls saga, with Yaniv cast in the role of persecuted heroine.
'Wax My Balls' seems like too crude a title for Lifetime, while the more family-friendly
'Wax My Legs' is just confusing. It will probably be called something bland and inoffensive like:
My Name is NOT Jonathan: The Jessica Yaniv Story.
***
I think the opening scene should take place in a public swimming pool, with dreamy slow-motion footage of children diving and splashing about in the water. A pair of cannon-balling kids cross paths in mid-air. Framed in the widening space between them, we see part of Jonathan Yaniv, on the opposite side of the pool, beaming creepily across the water. He is perched on his mobility scooter, in a red, one-piece bathing costume that is clearly inspired by Baywatch. He is the lifeguard.
A young girl who has been swimming underwater comes up coughing and spluttering. Yaniv trundles over and reaches down towards her:
“Take my hand, sweetie.”
The girl's mother moves in:
“Come away from that man, Katy.”
Even in his role as changing room supervisor, tampon fitter and administrator of the kiss of life to children who might be drowning, Yaniv is misgendered and regarded as a figure of mistrust by his peers.
***
All biopics will boil down the life of their subjects to a handful of easy to follow plot-lines and characters. With this in mind, the villains in the film will be an unwed mother and her delinquent teenage son (based respectively on WGkitty and Null) who live in the same building as Yaniv and run a website, called Kookaburra Orchard, where they smear and ridicule transgendered people. (At one point an incredulous police officer, played by Maynard James Keenan, will remark: “Kookaburra Orchard? That sounds like an Australian Winery.”)
Although Yaniv's claims of harassment will be treated with open disregard by the owners of his apartment building and the local police, it will be revealed that he is working for both parties undercover. His daily seizures and bouts of couch-fainting are a ruse to summon an ambulance where he can communicate with his handlers in private.
***
A chase scene early in the film, after transphobic graffiti is sprayed on the front door of Yaniv's apartment, will end with him collapsing in a corridor following the sudden onset of his period. He will crawl to the door of the nearest apartment, leaving a trail of blood in his wake, begging the female occupant to staunch the bleeding with a tampon, which he is too weak to insert himself.
There will also be a tense moment where Yaniv attempts to install a hidden camera outside WGkitty's apartment before she returns home.
***
Yaniv will be portrayed as vulnerable, but with a tough outer shell. In one scene, where he is drinking with his undercover cop buddies at a local dive bar, he will announce “I'm off to join the queue for the ladies room and take a sit-down piss.”
***
Jonathan's controversial racism will be presented as a crusade against illegal immigrants.
In a scene soundtracked by The Who classic
'The Seeker', Yaniv, who has been deputised by Canadian immigration officials, will lead a raid on a Sikh temple where a banquet for the homeless of Toronto is underway. He will plough his mobility scooter through the tables of food, holding his crutch out like a lance, as if he is a knight at a joust.
***
The climatic scene will be a showdown between WGkitty and Yaniv on the roof of their apartment building. During the struggle, Yaniv will be knocked off his mobility scooter and onto the ground.
WGkitty pulls a revolver out of her purse:
“I'm going to do what I should have done the first time I laid eyes on you.”
What WGkitty has failed to take into account is that, when Yaniv's scooter detects that its rider has dismounted, it circles back around, in this instance running into her, knocking her off-balance and over the side of the building.
Yaniv spits out a mouthful of blood and drags himself in his torn purple ballgown to the edge, where he gazes down on the lifeless body of WGkitty, who is splayed out on the courtyard flagstones below:
“I always knew you'd fall for me eventually.”
There will be a supplementary scene where we see Null being led away in handcuffs to a waiting police car. The mother who spurned Yaniv in the first scene of the film will send her little girl over to hug him.
Obviously I'm just brainstorming ideas. We'll need to talk to Cybill Shepherd's people about her playing Jonathan Yaniv, and we will need to find out who the current bad boy in the Mickey Mouse Club is, so we have someone to play Null.
In hindsight I have given this too much thought. Thank you for reading this overlong and exceptional thread.
Please add any of your own ideas for the film below.
